


Poet Laureate

by totheletter



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Atlanta Braves, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totheletter/pseuds/totheletter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonny Venters figures out Eric O'Flaherty's little secret. And he wants to help the guy out. But his one-word answer isn't exactly helpful so much as it is confusing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poet Laureate

Someone over at [](http://mlbanonmeme.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://mlbanonmeme.livejournal.com/)**mlbanonmeme** wanted to see a specific story featuring the Braves "O'Ventbrel" lineup. I started on that, but wanted something different. So this isn't really a response to that challenge, but something I hope works nicely nonetheless.  
 **Disclaimer:** This? This story? Of course it isn't true.

  
It took Jonny Venters about ten minutes to figure it out. If he'd known what he was looking for, it would have taken half that time. Eric O'Flaherty had himself a little crush. He watched with a curious amusement as O'Flaherty admired Craig Kimbrel's warm up one evening. O'Flaherty stared at the closer, his mouth drawn into a slight smile. Venters knew the reliever had been trying to spend more time with Kimbrel. He wasn't very good at hiding it. He'd offer to carry Craig's luggage when the team was boarding a flight for a road trip. He'd crowd Kimbrel's locker when the closer was getting dressed before the game, chatting away as Kimbrel half-listened and offered up the occasional "Mm-hm" as a response.

Venters grinned, keeping an eye on this little junior-high school play unfolding before him. Kimbrel was either oblivious or incredibly understanding. Venters bet it was the former.

Kimbrel finished his warm-up tosses. Ominous music pounded out from Turner Field's PA system. The gate opened, and Kimbrel ran out onto the outfield to thunderous cheers. O'Flaherty smiled and kicked his feet up on a cooler, folding his arms across his chest. Venters chuckled and turned his attention back to the game.

After the game, Venters stood by his locker pretending to listen as Moylan rattled on about some woman he slept with on one of his trips as a pharmaceutical rep. Venters was keeping an eye on O'Flaherty, who kept glancing back over his shoulder to Kimbrel. Craig was clad only in a white towel, beads of water dripping down his shoulder as he dug around in his locker looking for deodorant.

Venters held his hand up and excused himself from the conversation. He grabbed a stick of deodorant from his locker. He sidled up next to O'Flaherty and held the tube in front of O'Flaherty's face. He cocked his head back toward Kimbrel. "Take it to him."

O'Flaherty looked confused. "I don't..."

"Come on," Venters scoffed. "It's cute that you think he's cute, but I'm getting a little annoyed waiting to see what happens next. _Take this to him._ "

Eric hesitated. Venters waved the deodorant stick at him. "Now or never, dude."

O'Flaherty took the stick and shuffled over to Kimbrel's locker. Jonny couldn't hear what was said, but he could see everything. Kimbrel looked up. He smiled. He took the deodorant stick. Looked like he thanked O'Flaherty. Patted him on the shoulder. O'Flaherty grinned from ear to ear. Good sign. Venters went back over to his own locker and grabbed his gear bag. He slung it over a shoulder and walked out toward the players' entrance. He was halfway down the corridor when he heard O'Flaherty's voice behind him.

"Hey, Jonny!"

Venters turned around. "Yeah."

O'Flaherty caught up with him. "Thanks for the...whatever, back there."

"No problem."

"How did you--"

"Are you freaking kidding? I'm surprised I'm the first one to figure it out."

"But I thought I was keeping it under wraps pretty well."

"And I believed in Santa when I was a kid," Venters said. "Sometimes we all believe fairy tales."

"Okay, you want me to tone it down?"

"Nah. I want you to seal the deal. Enough tiptoeing, kid. Go for it."

O'Flaherty shook his head. "You're crazy."

"And you're wasting your time." Venters looked O'Flaherty right in the eye. "Prove me wrong."

Eric was getting a little flustered by the conversation. "How? How am I supposed to do that? Answer that, O Great One."

"Poetry," Venters said.

O'Flaherty stopped in the middle of the hallway. "What?"

Venters turned around as he kept walking. "Poetry! Kimbrel likes poetry!"

O'Flaherty's face brightened. "Thanks!"

Then, he frowned again. _Poetry?_ He'd never written a poem in his life. He ran back to the clubhouse to see who was still around.

"Hey, Beach."

Brandon Beachy looked up from his duffel bag. "Yeah?"

"I need your help on a project."

**An Arby's in Dunwoody, 12:43 a.m. EDT**

Beachy took a long draw off his Mountain Dew and put it back on the table. "You want me to help you write a poem that will get you into Kimbrel's pants."

O'Flaherty nearly choked on his roast beef. "Keep your voice down! And no! I want you to help me write a poem that'll show Craig that I'm, you know, into him or whatever."

"Which will lead to you getting into his pants."

"But make it sound more romantic than that."

Beachy looked skeptical. "The last time I wrote a poem was for a junior-year English assignment."

"Yeah, but you know, you're better with the...uh, with..."

"Words."

"--words. Right, yeah. See?"

Beachy balled up his roast beef wrapper and tossed it toward a trash can five feet away. It missed, bouncing off the window and into the terra cotta pot of a ficus tree.

"Well, that was surprising," he said. "Yeah, I'll help you with your poem thing."

O'Flaherty pumped his fist. "Excellent."

The next day, Beachy walked out to the bullpen with a notepad. He sat down next to O'Flaherty and took out a pencil that had been wedged between his ear and his cap. "Okay, I got a few ideas here."

O'Flaherty looked surprised. "I don't think that's such a good idea right now..."

"Why not? It's the second inning. They won't need you for a while. Now, _My heart's a bulldozer/For you, our dashing closer_."

"That's terrible," Eric said.

"Ingrate. Okay, here's more: _Red hair and smiling face/Make me sweat like a playoff race_. That one's a favorite."

"And another," Beachy continued.

" _Curveball, fastball, slider and change_  
Strikes, balls, umpires -- batters rearrange  
Hurling a sphere  
With no trace of fear  
If all in life were merely that simple  
My love, thy name is Craig Kimbrel.

"That one's better..." O'Flaherty said, unsure if he meant it.

Peter Moylan leaned over Beachy's shoulder. "The hell are are you working on?"

Beachy didn't even look up from his pad. "I'm writing a poem for O'Flaherty to give to his sweet baboo."

"His what?" Moylan replied.

"His crush. Kimbrel."

O'Flaherty wanted to die. " _Would you please not tell the world?_ " he whispered.

Beachy looked at Moylan. "Like you didn't know already."

Moylan barked out a sharp laugh. "Yeah! I was wondering when you'd finally get your ass in gear, E.O."

Beachy cleared his throat. "There once was a man from Alabama..."

O'Flaherty put his glove over his face and groaned.

"You didn't let me finish."

Moylan looked at the sheet of paper on Beachy's lap. "I didn't know you could find so many ways to rhyme 'blowjob.'"

**O'Flaherty's kitchen, that night**

O'Flaherty looked over the notes Beachy had given him, scattered across his kitchen table. "No," he said. "No, no, no. These aren't right at all."

Beachy sat across from the reliever. He glanced at the clock. 1:00 a.m. "Look, if you don't like these, that's the best I can do. You wanted my help, and now--"

"No, I don't mean you did a bad job," Eric said. "Maybe I just asked for something impossible. None of these really work for the way I feel about Craig."

"That's the key," Beachy replied, downing the rest of the ice-cold, stale coffee Eric handed him when he came over after the game. "I can't write about how you feel. You gotta do this yourself, man."

Eric nodded. He told Beachy to go home, and promised he'd think of something by the game that night.

*****

The national anthem ended, and the relief staff trotted up the a platform above the bullpen to chill until they were called in. Beachy took a chair to O'Flaherty's left, and Venters sat down on his right.

"Well?" Venters asked.

"Well, what?"

Beachy leaned toward O'Flaherty. "I filled him in on the project. How'd it go?"

"Oh, I didn't--"

"You didn't give it to him?" By now, Moylan's voice joined the conversation.

"Yes! No. I mean...I wrote something down this morning."

"And?"

"And I put it in his locker."

The other three men looked on in mild shock.

Venters spoke first. "What the hell, Eric. This isn't junior high school!"

Beachy shook his head. Moylan smacked his own forehead.

Eric's face turned red. "I fucked up somethin' royal, didn't I?"

Beachy nodded. "Yep."

"I was too nervous to give it to him in person," O'Flaherty said. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Too late to worry about that now," Venters said.

Kimbrel walked up the stairs to the platform. The relievers looked at him as he approached O'Flaherty. He held up the scrap of paper. "This is from you?" he asked.

Eric gulped and looked Kimbrel in the eye. "Yeah. Yes, it's from me."

Kimbrel looked down at the paper and smiled. "This is good. Stand up."

Beachy balled up his fists, thinking Kimbrel was about to slug O'Flaherty. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Venters do the same. Eric stood. Kimbrel wrapped an arm around his back and pulled him in for a kiss. It was brief and chaste, but he let his arm linger on the small of Eric's back.

O'Flaherty thought he might have passed out and that this was a dream of some kind. "Wha--I...huh?"

"I liked your poem," Craig said. "I would have rearranged the syntax a little, built in some stronger meter. But this is good. I could tell you really meant it. You should come over to my apartment after the game. I've got some volumes of Whitman I think you'd love."

"Guh...migwah."

Moylan chuckled. "He's asking you out, loser."

"Uh-huh. I mean, yes. I'd like...yes."

Kimbrel smiled. "Great. I'll talk to you when we get back to the clubhouse."

The closer waved at the other pitchers and went back down the stairs to hang out with a couple of the other bullpen guys. O'Flaherty sat back down, looking shocked. Venters clapped him on the shoulder as Moylan and Beachy offered congratulations. The trio was still teasing their teammate when Craig appeared at the top of the steps again, beckoning their attention.

"Oh, Eric," he said. "I forgot to say -- you make me sweat like a playoff race, too."

O'Flaherty blushed. Beachy looked to him for explanation.

"Okay, so I used a _little_ of the stuff you gave me. Because you're better with...uh..."

"Words."

"Yeah! Words!"

Beachy playfully swatted O'Flaherty with his cap as Venters and Moylan erupted in laughter. Their laughter mixed with a thousand more joyous cheers and conversations of the crowd, joining the homogeneous buzz that drifted up and out of Turner Field, into the humid Georgia night.


End file.
